NC's safety net frays with frightening efficiency

The Department of Health and Human Services has been doing its best to make North Carolina No. 1 during the federal shutdown, in a way that should please no one.

Last week, DHHS made North Carolina the first state to suspend applications for Women. Infants and Children nutrition assistance. In September, nearly 264,000 North Carolinians in the three categories were helped. The cutoff was reversed quickly when budget director Art Pope found some money to keep the payments coming.

This week, DHHS made North Carolina the first state to cut off applications for the Work First program under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families umbrella. Work First provides benefits for 6,948 parents of dependent children and 13,761 children who live with someone other than a parent.

Two Democratic congressmen from North Carolina found the actions puzzling. "We are concerned that the decision to suspend the TANF program may reflect a disturbing trend and urge you again to reverse course," David Price, of Chapel Hill, and G.K. Butterfield, of Wilson, wrote in a letter to Republican Gov. Pat McCrory.

The two said the federal government has guaranteed reimbursement, "which is apparently good enough for 49 other states."

Sherry Bradsher, deputy secretary of DHHS, insisted North Carolina was a special case. She said the state lost $36 million in supplementary federal TANF funds two years ago during federal budget-cutting.

That defense might have held water had it not been for continual DHHS actions that suggest the agency is less than fully dedicated to its mission. Besides, didn't other states suffer similar cutbacks?

This is an agency that has consistently filled key positions with questionable appointments, including a highly-paid pair of 24-year-olds with no visible qualifications. One appointee, an opponent of public early childhood education programs who was put in charge of those programs, had to resign but others whose hiring is questionable remain on the job.

Who knows how much worse DHHS could have made a bad situation had not Congress reopened the government late Wednesday. Child-care subsidies already were jeopardized, and DHHS said as many as 72,000 North Carolina children in low-income families could have been affected had the shutdown continued.

This is no small matter. Without the subsidies, many parents would lose their jobs. "I won't have anyone to watch him while this is going on," said Allison Reynolds, a Henderson County mother who uses Country Bear Day Care.

"I can't bring him to work because he's only five months old, so chances are I'll probably end up getting laid off. His father works, too, so he can't stay home with him. I assume this is what everybody else will go through as well - getting laid off."

Country Bear was scrambling to replace food aid that had been cut off, according to its director, Bridgett Librado.

The programs administered by DHHS provide real services to people who would face great hardship without them. North Carolina already ranks high in food insecurity, with an estimated 104,000 people in the mountains lacking continuous access to good food. A hasty cutback of WIC would have compounded that situation.

The agency told county social service officials to resume processing Work First welfare applications and that child care subsidy funds were restored to prior levels. But it's fair to ask if the one-of-its-kind shutdown was proper in the first place.

Amid wealth, poverty continues. People struggling to make ends meet and to pull themselves up need and deserve our help. They certainly don't need to be tossed an anvil.

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NC's safety net frays with frightening efficiency

The Department of Health and Human Services has been doing its best to make North Carolina No. 1 during the federal shutdown, in a way that should please no one.